Shooting is fun! Our TechTeens have been learning how to use professional DSLR cameras as part of their experiences at the Cal Academy this month. Our goal was for them to feel comfortable using higher-end cameras both for projects they are working on at the Academy and any future photography they may want to do …
"Interstellar," the new scifi film directed by Christopher Nolan, explores a number of complex and fascinating scientific phenomena and concepts, including black holes, gravity, wormholes, a fifth dimension, and in particular Special Relativity. As a scifi buff, I found the movie to be very entertaining. And as a science educator, I thought that there …
The California Academy of Sciences is proud to a member of the founding committee of Hive Bay Area, a network of San Francisco Bay Area organizations working together to create an "ecosystem of opportunities" for local youth to explore their interests and learn 21st century skills. We work with awesome partners including the San Francisco Public …
Last Saturday, we held a successful and fun first day of the Science Game Design Workshop at the the Cal Academy. Led by Chris Bennett and his colleague Karen Guttieri from the Peace Innovation Lab at Stanford University, this is the first of what we hope will be a regular series of design and technology workshops for teens at …
Check out these amazing nature photos that were the winners of the California Academy's first "Big Picture" photography contest! Selected from 6,300 photos submitted by photographers from 12 countries, the 42 finalists are just stunning. They span a wide variety of species, environments, and formats — from intimate portraits to enormous vistas. Here are some …
I'm excited to share the news that the California Academy of Sciences has a acquired a state-of-the-art high resolution microscopic camera called the "Magnify2," created by the company GIGAMacro based in Napa, California. It looks, frankly, totally badass. The Magnify2 is billed as a "complete, high performance, precision robotic 3-axis linear motion control, image …
Check out the beautifully designed new website of the California Academy of Sciences. Planned to better serve our many audiences, to showcase the wonder and beauty of our collections, and work well on a variety of different devices from a cell phone to a 25" monitor, the new calacademy.org launched today. Surf around and tell …
The Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) Conference is one of my industry’s main gatherings of the year. It brings together more than 1,500 museum and science center professionals from hundreds of institutions from around the country and the world. This year it was held from October 18-21 in lovely Raleigh, North Carolina. It’s always fun and stimulating …
This morning I got up at 4am to catch the live broadcast by NASA of a spacewalk by astronauts Reid Wiseman and Barry Wilmore on the International Space Station. Their mission was to replace a malfunctioning "sequential shunt unit" that regulates electricity generated by one of the solar panels on the ISS. Sounds super boring, but …
The California Academy of Sciences invites high school students to participate in a Game Design Playshop on November 8th and November 15th. Ethicist Mark Budolfson and award-winning game designing Chris Bennett will lead teens in designing tabletop (board, card, dice) games around important, natural science issues like climate change and ecology. Students will combine science …